Uncategorized Archives - Page 19 of 32

Hawaiian Mauna

11×14

Watercolor on Paper

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I have I told you lately how much I LOVE Hawaii? There’s something about the blue, blue ocean and lush green mountains. I used the salt technique on the water and the mountains of this piece, painting wet into wet during most of it. This was a fun piece to complete – very spontaneous and fun!

Hand Study

6×6

Watercolor on Paper

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It’s been awhile since I’ve done a Daily Paintworks Challenge but I decided to give this one a shot. This week’s challenge was to do a hand study on a 6×6 canvas/piece of paper. Here’s mine! I hope it didn’t screw it up too bad. 🙂

Golden Fishies Upstream

11×14

Watercolor on Paper, Pen and Ink

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I’ve been having a lot of fun with these salt paintings. For this piece, I did the background first without a plan and once I saw the pattern that formed, I added the fish where I thought they would fit. For a purely spontaneous piece, I like the way it turned out. 🙂

Mail Art: Aloha! – Chance to Win!

Mail Art: Aloha!

4 3/4 x 11

Watercolor on Paper

I started an online art class this week that explores basic art concepts and techniques. It has been a great refresher for me. The class theme for this week was Mail Art. We learned about works from popular artists from the movement, such as Eleanor Austin, Ryosuke Cohen, and Ruud Janssen. Our assignment theme was “Memories” and when I think of memories, some of my fondest involve my travels to Hawaii, hence the Hawaiian theme for the pieces I created. The envelope front shows waves and seashells and the back (pictured below) shows a Hawaiian coastline. The insert is a surfboard with flowers.

I’m dying to share this piece with one of my biggest supporters so I decided to turn this into a blog/Facebook contest. All you have to do to win it, is comment on my blog post or share my post on Facebook. I’ll conduct a random drawing on Tuesday, June 18th. I hope you’ll share and comment!

Thanks for your support – I can’t tell you how much your comments, likes, and shares mean to me!

Aloha!

Heather

How To: “Rock On”

Rock On

5×5

Mixed Media

I work for an amazing entertainment media university here in Florida and I’m partnering up with a few other faculty members to put on an art show with all 5″x5″ paintings. Here’s my first painting/collage for the show. It’s a mix of acrylic, canvas, watercolor, and pen…called “Rock On.”

I thought I’d switch it up a little an offer a little “how to” blog post, showing my process along the way. Here’s the process on how this piece was created:

I started off with a blank 5×5 canvas and used the funky watercolor paper that I created last week. The image below shows you the colorful sheet that I created by painting wet into wet. I started off with a full sheet of water saturated paper and dabbed paint onto the sheet until it was completely covered. I used sea salt (coarse Kosher to be specific) to create the splattered patterns. The trick is to leave the paper alone as it dries so it has time to take shape on it’s own. Once the paper was dry, I knew it was the perfect piece to create my crowd of people. 🙂

Then I started cutting out the crowd. I did a rough sketch of people in pencil and used and x-acto knife to cut out each person. I tried to strategically select colors as if the lights from the stage were shining on them; darker colors (black, purple and blues) for the people that were out of the light and lighter colors (oranges and yellows) for the part of the crowd standing in the light.

I continued to cut them out until I had enough people to cover the entire width of the canvas.

I developed the background (pictured below) by painting the entire canvas with black acrylic paint. Once it dried, I sponged on the white, red and blue acrylic paint to create a foggy/smoky effect. The last step was to add the gray and white stripes to represent the lights.

I used Mod Podge to attach the people in the crowd. I added the glue to the back of each person with a brush and followed up with a top layer of Mod Podge to seal them completely. (Mod Podge goes on milky white but dries transparently.)

I added the pattern to the sides with a silver pen and then used another layer of Mod Podge to seal the entire piece.

Ta Dah! One finished collage piece using acrylic paint, watercolor, paper, canvas, pen, and Mod Podge.

Grace

6×6

Watercolor on Paper

Commission

This is Grace. Don’t you just want to hug her? I did, the entire time I was painting this. I painted from a photo and her fur looked so soft; her eyes, so sweet. I’ve found that animals are my favorite thing to paint and I fall in love with each one as I paint them. I hope you are having a wonderful weekend!

I Found Nemo

8×10

Watercolor on Paper

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Click Here for Prints

My four year old son has been asking me to paint Nemo, one of the Disney characters, for months. Tonight I started to experiment with Kosher salt and watercolor and after doing the piece below, I couldn’t help but think of how much it looks like an underwater landscape to me. So I finally found my inspiration to start painting Nemo, this little clown fish. While it doesn’t look just like Nemo, this painting was certainly inspired by him.

The texture that salt brings to a painting just cant be duplicated without the salt – it absorbs the paint to create these funky patterns. I love the way it bleeds. And if watercolor wasn’t predictable enough, the salt just adds even more unpredictability. How fun! I’ll be doing more pieces like this in the future – stay tuned for more underwater sea life with a true salt water background.

Lighthouse Point Marina

11×14

Watercolor on Paper

This brightly colored tropical piece was painted from a photo taken at one of my favorite spots, the Lighthouse Point Marina. It’s for one of my best friends, Kim. Kim and I were friends in college – we were in the same sorority (Pi Beta Phi), lived together for three years, and practically grew up together. We’ve stayed really close over the years and despite all of life’s crazy events (the birth of our kids, old/new relationships, friendships, etc.) we’ve always been there for each other. She lives in south Florida and every time I go to visit her, the Lighthouse Point Maria is a destination of choice.

(Kim patiently waiting for me to take countless reference photos.)

I really boosted the color on this one, at Kim’s request. This is probably one of the most detailed paintings I’ve ever done. Here’s an in-progress photo taken earlier this week. I hope you all are enjoying your weekend. It was nice to stay inside this weekend to work on this. It is getting HOT here in Florida!

Palm Breeze

5×7

Watercolor on Paper

Giveaway

This painting was created for my new friend and Facebook fan, Megan. She won a random drawing that I did for my fans when my Facebook page hit 500 likes. She sent over a photo to work from and this is the finished piece. Congratulations, Megan!!!

I love doing giveaways – so fun! I’ll be doing more in the future so if you haven’t already liked my page, please do! https://www.facebook.com/heathertorresart

Birds of a Feather

11×14

Watercolor on Paper

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